


Able

by sans_patronymic



Series: Apart [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 08:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12295248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: During one of Watson's visits, Holmes incurs an injury.





	Able

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/gifts).



By the time Watson comes around again, I have almost forgiven him. I always do, in the end. I could have been cross for days; for weeks; on one occasion, for a month and a half. It is easy to be cross with someone when he isn’t there to defend himself. But then a telegram arrives and two days later there he is, standing in my parlor, kissing me, and I forgive him.

The forgiveness does not last long—ten, maybe twelve hours—but I make the most of it. I wake up first these days. While he is still half in some dream, I wrap him in my arms, thrilled to find the bed not empty. Watson wears pyjamas exclusively now, ever since they were first thrust upon him by an overeager salesgirl in Selfridges. The shirt rides up when he sleeps and I use this to my advantage. My fingers slide across the bare expanse of his belly and chart the variations in texture of the hair around his navel. He wakes just as my hands move lower and I proceed to demonstrate just how inconvenient pyjamas really are.

He looks so silly when I’ve finished with him. The shirt has bunched under his arms. He wriggles against the sheets in an effort to pull his trousers up.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Whoever heard of wearing trousers to bed.”

“It’s the style now.”

“Oh, is it?”

“Maybe not out here, but in London it is.”

 _Crack!—_ the idyll shatters. I have forgotten Watson has a hammer of his own. Two can play at this game.

“You must forgive my ignorance. We are _so_ uncultured out here in the country. How kind of such a worldly gentleman to grace us with his presence.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

I say nothing. I do not say whose idea it was for me to leave London. Nor do I remind him why I left. I turn away and watch the hares run through the bluebells on the wallpaper. We wallow in the silence for a moment, until I cannot resist.

“I don’t have to be in Sussex. We could be anywhere in the world. You need only say.”

“Hush,” is the response and before I can protest, he pulls me into a kiss.

“Anywhere,” I repeat, “Paris, Geneva, Lhasa.”

My suggestions go unheeded. He kisses the side of my neck. As my list grows, I can sense his patience thinning.

“Anywhere but here, of course.”

That gets a response. The kisses halt. Watson heaves a sigh.

“I know you like it here,” he states, “and I—“

“Able was I, ere I saw Elba.”

He shakes his head. His eyes roll balefully.

“Let’s not start this again, please.”

“ _Again?_ ”

“Please.”

Again I say nothing. I do not ask when we have ever started this conversation. I do not ask, if we start it so often, why have we never finished it. We get up, dress, eat breakfast and go about our day, stepping on the pieces of the shattered morning. It is worse than eggshells; it is like glass.

We are still angry with each other when it happens. Watson is inside, scribbling away on the desk he refuses to let be his. I am outside, cutting some thyme from the garden, too agitated to enjoy the fine weather. I am heading for the kitchen and it happens. I turn, I sink, and I yowl.

"Holmes!" From the ferocity of his cry, one would think I've been shot. 

"I'm all right! I'm all right." I struggle to my feet to prove it, just as Watson appears at my side. "These damn moles! Hope to God I stepped on one of them."

"Can you walk? Come lie down and let's have a look at it."

No sooner does he say it, then I'm prone on the settee with my foot in his hands. He rolls it to and fro.

"Tell me when it hurts."

It hurts whenever. I grimace my way through his exam. Watson shakes his head at me. I am a naughty child. 

"Doesn't seem broken, but you've twisted it quite smartly."

"You don't say. Damn things: they eat my carrots, dig up my garden and now look what they’ve done!“

“You’d best keep it elevated. I’ll get some ice.”

“We were meant to go into town today,” I shout over the sound of an ice pick in the kitchen. “Now I’ll have to sit here.”

This is worse than shattered. It is a prison sentence. It is a whole day under each other’s feet, getting angrier and angrier. I am laying curses on the moles while Watson doctors me. A pillow appears beneath my injured ankle and a tea towel of ice is balanced on top.

“Moles dig holes. You can’t hate them for being what they are.”

“Then I hate them for spoiling our walk to town. You ought to go without me.”

“I don’t mind.”

“No, you must go—we haven’t any meat for supper and I’m nearly out of eggs.”

“What about you?”

“I can manage without you.”

He looks me over once or twice and nods. Within half an hour, he is gone. It is shameful, but I’m glad for it. I breathe easier. 

I do try and rest for a while, but eventually the tea towel begins dripping and my muscles threaten to atrophy. Soon enough, I am up and about. My ankle throbs in protest as I make my way around the house, clinging to the backs of chairs and the edges of tables to pull myself along. The hours tick away and by the time Watson returns with a pork roast and fresh eggs, I am sitting at the-desk-which-is-not-his, drinking tea and reading his latest work.

“Hulloa then. How did you get over here?”

“I hopped.”

“I see.”

“I quite like this story,” I say, still holding the pages, “though I don’t remember it happening quite this way. And I certainly do _not_ recall receiving an emerald tie pin from Her Majesty.”

“You should of.”

After dinner I am put back on the settee with a pipe and a new ration of ice. Watson reads aloud from the evening paper which he picked up in town and we put forth our speculations about this and that, issues foreign and domestic. He is particularly stricken by an article about a mysterious blackguard who has been pinching postmen’s bicycles.

“But why should anyone do such a thing?”

“People get up to all sorts out here.” Even with today’s excitement, I cannot resist. I seize my hammer and smash. “It’s a pity you’re leaving tomorrow, or we could make some inquiries of our own.”

“I’m not leaving tomorrow.”

“You’re not?”

“I thought I should stay until your ankle’s better.”

“I don’t need looking after. I can manage.”

“You only say that when it isn’t true.”

He smiles at me until I acquiesce. For the next few weeks, we put the hammers away. I let the pleasant moments sit. It is the longest Watson has ever spent in Sussex and if it wears on him, he doesn’t show it. We discover who has been pinching bicycles, but neither one of us has the heart to turn her in. 

By the time he leaves, my ankle is right as rain and I am able to walk out into the garden without a stick or cane. It will be winter soon and the moles will go into hibernation. Some years it is cold enough that the top soil freezes solid. Then it will be Christmas, then a new year and a new spring. I hope they live to see it, the wretched little things.


End file.
